The son of a notable Mpongwe family, Charles N’Tchoréré was a student at the Ecole Montfort. Forced to enter the world of employment, he occupied a sales post in Cameroon.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, he left his German colony and returned to Gabon. In 1916, he voluntary enlisted to fight on the front line. At the end of the war, he decided to pursue a career in the military. Appointed to warrant officer in 1919, he fought in Morocco. After joining the officers’ training academy in Fréjus, he left at the rank of major in 1922. Sent to the Levant, Lieutenant N’Tchoréré was gravely wounded during operations in Syria. He was cited in 1925 to the Order of the Division and decorated with Croix de Guerre with a silver star.

Following a brief interlude working at the ministry of war, he asked to be sent to Sudan. In Kati he took the command of the out-of-ranks company of the 2nd RTS (Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs), at the same time as being headmaster at the army children’s school.

Promoted to Captain in 1933, he was appointed to the 1st RTS in Saint-Louis (Senegal) where he again was at the head of the school for troop children.

At the outbreak of war in September 1939, he requested to take command of a battalion of Gabonese volunteers. Assigned to the Camp de Sauge, near Bordeaux, he was sent to the front on the Somme River where he took command of the 7th company of the 53rd RICMS (Mixed Colonial Senegalese Infantry Regiment). On 7 June, entrenched in the village of Airaines, near Amiens, Captain N’Tchoréré and his men, overwhelmed by German attacks, were taken prisoner after days of fierce resistance. However, a German officer refused to treat N’Tchoréré as an officer and when he refused to fall in line with the black enlisted soldiers, he was shot point blank.

For his conduct during the campaign in France, Captain N’Tchoréré was posthumously cited to the Order of the Division in October 1940 and then to the Order of the Army Corps in August 1954 and decorated with the Croix de Guerre with the silver gilt star attachment.

The 1957-1959 graduating year of the training academy for officers from overseas territories took the name Captain N’Tchoréré.

Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonika, Macedonia, on 19 May 1881.

After graduating from military high school and the military academy in Istanbul, he was appointed Staff Captain in 1905 before being assigned to the Fifth Army based in Damascus, Syria, fighting against the Druzes. At the same time, he formed a small opposition society, called Vatan ve Hürriyet (Motherland and Liberty). In Autumn 1907, he was appointed Senior Captain of the Third Army in Salonika, where he met the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks who opposed the regime which re-established the Constitution in 1876. In April 1909, he became Chief of Staff under General Mahmud Shevket, commander of the army put in place by constitutionalist officers to combat the uprising in Istanbul led by the defenders of absolutism. 

He made a name for himself in December 19911, in Libya, during the Italo-Turkish war, winning the Battle of Tobruk before he took military command of Derna, in March of the following year. However, Montenegro having declared war on Turkey in October, he returned to take part in the first Balkan war which saw Turkey fighting against Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. Chief of Staff in Gallipoli, he forced back the Bulgarian offensive. He was made military attaché to Sofia in 1913.

In November 1914, Turkey joined the war fighting alongside Germany. As Lieutenant Colonel, Mustafa Kemal was tasked with forming the 19th infantry division and made a reputation for himself during the German-Turkish counter-offensive which aimed to prevent the French and British troops landing in the Dardanelles Strait. Pushing back the allied assaults, he claimed a major victory on the Anafarta front in August 1915. Promoted to general, in 1916 he took command of the 16th army corps in the Caucasus then of the 2nd army in Diyarbakir. Confronting the Russian troops, he took Mus and Bitlis. Recalled to Syria, where he served under German General Erich von Falkenhayn, he was given command of the 7th army. When he returned to Istanbul in autumn 1917, he accompanied the crown prince Vahidettin on an official trip to Germany. He returned to Syria again in August 1918 where he took order of the 7th army against the British until the signing of the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918.

After the armistice and in opposition to the occupation and dismemberment of Turkey, he established an organised national resistance movement.

Appointed as general inspector of the northern and north-eastern armies in May 1919, he was tasked with assuring the security of the Samsun region, where Turkish, Greek and Armenian populations were fighting, and ordered the forces against the Greek troops which landed in Smyrna. 

Following disagreements with the Sultan’s politics, he made an announcement putting the Turkish War of Independence in motion, in the town of Amasya on 22 June 1919. He then called for national conferences to be held in Erzurum and Sivas in July and September respectively. Finally, the meeting of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara on 23 April 1920 resulted in the formation of a national government of which Assembly President Mustafa Kemal was elected as leader. 

Securing the withdrawal of the French from Cilecia and Armenia’s return of the occupied territories, he also succeeded in driving the Greeks out of Anatolia, importantly leading and winning the Battle of Dumlupinar (30 August 1922) and signing the Armistice of Mudanya on 11 October 1922.

In the meantime, the Sultan accepted on 10 August 1920 the Treaty of Sèvres which considerably shrank the Turkish Empire. Mustafa Kemal fought against this treaty and successes in having the Allies revise the terms. On 24 July 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne put an end to the Armenian and Greek claims and recognised Turkish sovereignty across the entire national territory.

Having got this far, Mustafa Kemal went even further, introducing major political, economic and social reforms to bring Turkey into the modern age. The sultanate was abolished (1 November 1922) and the Republic declared on 29 October 1923. Elected President, he made Ankara the capital, incorporated secularism into the constitution and set the country on the path to economic development. In line with the law of 1934 enforcing Turkish citizens to adopt a surname, he took the name Atatürk, meaning “Father of all the Turks”

He died on 10 November 1938 in Istanbul.

Alphonse Juin, son of a gendarme, was born in Bône, Algeria, on 16 December 1888. After his studies in Constantine and later in Algiers, he was admitted to Saint-Cyr in 1909. He graduated at the head of his class –the "de Fès" class, in 1912 – the same year as Charles de Gaulle. He chose to join the Algerian Tirailleurs. Assigned to Morocco at the end of 1912, Second Lieutenant Juin took part in the pacification operations in the country.

On 3 August 1914, Germany declared war on France. Lieutenant Juin joined the front with the Moroccan troops. In September 1914, he took part in the Battle of the Marne. Seriously wounded on the Champagne front in March 1915, he partially lost the use of his right arm. Captain in 1916, he joined the 5th battalion of Moroccan Tirailleurs at the Chemin des Dames. In February 1918, he completed army staff training at Melun before being seconded to the French military mission to the American army in October and assigned to developmental training courses for the liaison officers of the American Expeditionary Force.

He earned the certificate of the École Supérieure de Guerre in 1921 and served in Tunisia before returning to Morocco at the end of 1923, where he took part in the Rif Campaign. He returned to France with Maréchal Lyautey in the autumn of 1925 and worked under his orders at the Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre. Promoted to the rank of Battalion Chief in 1926, he left for the 7th Algerian Tirailleurs regiment in Constantine the following year.

In 1929 he was put in charge of the military staff offices of the Resident-General of Morocco, Lucien Saint, and played an active role in the last phase of the Atlas pacification plan. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in March 1932, he became a professor of general tactics at the École Supérieure de Guerre in 1933 before being assigned second in command at the 3rd Zouave regiment in Constantine. He took command of this regiment on 6 March 1935. In June, he was promoted to Colonel. In 1937, he was assigned to the service of the Resident-General of Morocco, General Noguès, and also took courses at the Centre des Hautes Études Militaires.

Named Brigadier General on 26 December 1938, he was assigned to mobilisation at staff headquarters for the North Africa theatre of operations. As the situation in Europe was worsening, he was in Algiers preparing measures relative to raising divisions in Algeria and Tunisia. With the declaration of war in September 1939, he asked to serve in metropolitan France. The following 4 December, he took up command of the 15th Motorised Infantry Division. When the German forces launched their offensive in the west on 10 May 1940, his division entered Belgium, where it fought remarkably at Gembloux on 14 and 15 May. Further to the south, German troops broke through the front at Sedan. Juin received an order to pull back. He successively defended Valenciennes and the outskirts of Lille, providing cover for the retreat 1st French Army toward Dunkirk. He was captured in Lille on 30 May 1940 and imprisoned at Königstein fortress. Named Major General during his captivity, he was released in June of 1941 at Maréchal Pétain’s request as a specialist of North Africa. Named deputy to the Commanding General of the troops in Morocco on 16 July 1941, he was promoted to General of the Army Corps and replaced General Weygand at the head of the North Africa forces on the following 20 November. For the Army of Africa, he pursued the policy adopted by his predecessor: "defence against everybody" (both Axis and Allied forces).

On 8 November 1942, the British and Americans landed in Algeria and Morocco. Juin, who was not informed of the operation, was arrested in Algiers by members of the local resistance movement. The authorities quickly took back control of the city. Juin was freed and intervened to obtain a cease-fire between the landing forces and the French troops. Back in the war on the Allied side, the Army of Africa then participated in taking back France’s national territory, with Tunisia as the first theatre of operations. During this campaign (November 1942 – May 1943), General Juin commanded the French Army Detachment and was named Army General on 25 December 1942. He held the position of acting French Resident-General in Tunisia starting on 8 May 1943. During the summer, he set up the French Expeditionary Corps that he led into the Italian Campaign. After several successful battles, on the Pantano in December 1943, on the Rapido and at Belvedere in January 1944, he was victorious at Garigliano on 13 May, opening up the way to Rome for the Allies. He then moved north to Sienna and northern Tuscany. Juin left the French Expeditionary Corps and Italy in August.

Named general chief of the national defence staff under General de Gaulle, Head of the Provisional Government, he entered liberated Paris on 25 August alongside the General. As France’s liberation continued, he dedicated himself to reorganising the French armed forces to enable them to play a full role at the end of the operations. At the same time, as a military expert, he carried out many missions, notably to Moscow in December 1944 where he took part in the negotiations on the future Franco-Soviet pact and to the United States in April of 1945 for the foundation of the United Nations. In April 1946, General Juin was sent to the Far East to negotiate the withdrawal of Chinese troops occupying northern Indochina.

In 1947, Juin returned to North Africa where he was appointed to the position of France’s Resident-General in Rabat, Morocco. The situation in the Far East continued to deteriorate, however, and in October 1950, the government sent him on a new mission to Indochina. Inspector general of the French armed forces in January 1951, he took on command of the allied forces in the Central Europe sector the following September under the Atlantic Alliance. His functions put him in the centre of domestic and international problems: France’s place in the Atlantic Alliance, the debate on the European Defence Community (EDC), the movement of the North African countries toward independence, the war in Indochina, etc. At the same time, he was promoted to the rank of Maréchal de France on 7 May 1952 and was admitted to the Académie Française on 26 June.

In February 1957, he published his first book, “Le Maghreb en Feu”, and then dedicated himself to writing his Memoires and various books.

Maréchal Juin died on 27 January 1967.

He had received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and held the Médaille Militaire, the War Cross 1914-1918, the War Cross 1939-1945, the War Cross for Foreign Operational Theatres, the Colonial Medal for Morocco and Tunisia, as well as many foreign decorations.

In May of 1927, L’oiseau blanc, the plane flown by Charles Nungesser and François Coli, disappeared over the Atlantic. This accident put an end to the life of one of the “Flying Aces” of the Great War.

Charles Nungesser was born in Paris on 15 March 1892. He was a daredevil from childhood, with a passion for mechanics, driving race cars and flying airplanes.

In 1907, after studying at the école des Arts et Métiers, Charles Nungesser travelled to South America.

He worked as a mechanic in Buenos Aires for an engine importer, participating in one of the first automobile rally raids in the Andes in 1909. He became part of the aviation world, showing off his talents as a pilot at an air show and during many flights over Uruguay and Argentina.

When the Great War broke out, Nungesser returned to France and joined a cavalry regiment.

He took part in the battle of the borders but was surrounded. He managed to get back to the French lines on 3 September 1914 after intercepting a German army staff car, killing the four officers riding in it and crossing the entire region occupied by the Germans at high speed.

This act of bravery earned him the French Médaille Militaire.

But Nungesser, who dreamt of aviation, asked to enlist in the air force. On 22 January 1915, he started training and on 8 April obtained his pilot’s licence. He was assigned to the 106th bomber squadron based in Saint-Pol, near Dunkirk, and flew his first mission over occupied Flanders on 11 April, flying a Voisin 3.

On the 26th, Nungesser engaged in his first dogfight against a German Albatros. His Voisin was hit four times, but he brought the plane back to the base. He received an army commendation for his exploits.

Nungesser was named warrant officer on 5 July and went to Nancy with his wing. He shot down his first enemy aircraft in the night of 30-31 July.

Wounded, he returned to the front to continue his missions

After an advanced training course for fighter missions, Charles Nungesser joined the N65 fighter squadron, based in Nancy, in November. It was during this period that he painted the fuselage of his Nieuport with his legendary coat of arms: a black heart with a silver skull and crossbones above a coffin with burning torches on either side.

During the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, Nungesser achieved the feat of shooting down three enemy planes in the same day. In December, his twentieth victory earned him an army commendation and the Military Cross.

Wounded and discharged, he nonetheless received an authorisation to continue flying and shot down two enemy planes on 1 May 1917. On 16 August he scored his thirtieth victory. But due to his injuries, his health began to fail, notably after he was seriously injured in a car accident in which Pochon, his mechanic, was killed. Nonetheless, Lieutenant Nungesser was back on the front in December.

When he shot down his thirty-sixth plane on 5 June 1918, he received another commendation as well as France’s Legion of Honour, declaring, “After this, I can die now!”

After another hospital stay, Nungesser returned to the front on 14 August.

On the 15th, he scored his forty-fifth and last victory.

When the war was over, Charles Nungesser agreed to set up a flight school in Orly. But this great athlete and daredevil had in mind a project to fly across the Atlantic.

On 8 May 1927, L’oiseau blanc, the plane flown by Nungesser and Coli, a comrade in arms, took off from Le Bourget, headed for the North American continent. He was never seen again.

(18th January 1879: Paris - 11th March 1949: Dijon)

From a humble Alsation family who had settled in Paris - his father was a coal merchant - Henri Giraud, a young man with an adventurous nature, excelled in his secondary education at the Stanislas, Bossuet and Louis-le-Grand high schools, joining the ranks of the French army in 1900 on leaving the Saint-Cyr military academy.

He was posted to the 4th Zouaves, in North Africa, with which unit he was sent to the front in 1914. Wounded, he was taken prisoner on the 30th August at the Battle of Guise, during a counter attack by General Lanrezac against von Bulow's Second German Army. He managed to escape at the end of September with the help of Doctor Frère's network, meeting up with the French military attaché at La Haye, who evacuated him to the United Kingdom, from where he was able to return to France. He distinguished himself once again in the autumn of 1917 when the 3rd Battalion of the 4th Zouaves recaptured the fort of La Malmaison, on the Chemin des Dames and then during the offensives planned by Pétain following the crisis of spring 1917. After the war, he joined General Franchet d'Esperey's troops in Constantinople, returning with his Colonel's stripes to Morocco at Lyautey's request to fight against the Berber rebellion movements. He thus contributed to the surrender of Abd-el-Krim (27th May 1926) during the Rif war, for which brave feat he was awarded the légion d'honneur.

Promoted to Military Commander of the town of Metz, he met Colonels Charles de Gaulle and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Made a General in 1936 and Commander of the 7th army and member of the Upper War Council, Giraud, who did not believe in the effectiveness of armoured tanks, was challenging the tactics advocated by de Gaulle when the Second World War broke out. On the 10th May 1940 his units, having been sent to the Netherlands, delayed the German advance, most notably at Breda on the 13th May. He was taken prisoner on the 19th May in Wassigny whilst trying to stand in the way of the Panzer divisions with the 9th Army in the Ardennes. He was imprisoned in Silesia at Koenigstein castle, near Dresden. On the 17th April 1942, Giraud escaped from there with the help of some loyal supporters, Generals Mesny, Mast and Baurès and the British secret services who facilitated his escape from Schandau onwards. He then reached the Alsace and, later, Vichy. His adventure, which quickly became general knowledge and which he relates in Mes evasions (My Escapes), annoyed the German government who wanted him to return to prison, but he escaped this sanction by signing a letter to Marshal Pétain expressing his intention not to oppose his regime. Living under supervision, it was not long before Giraud was contacted by the Allies who were anxious to keep General de Gaulle away from the preparations for Operation Torch. Exfiltrated in November 1942 via Gibraltar, he met Eisenhower from whom he obtained permission to remain in command of the French troops. On the ground, the situation degenerated into a civil war, with Admiral Darlan's men refusing to recognise his authority. The assassination of Darlan on the 24th December put an end to the conflict. Giraud took over as his successor, maintaining the institutions, as well as the exceptional status of Jews and having some of the resistance fighters who had assisted in the landings interned in camps in the Southern Sahara. Present at the conference of Casablanca, he was forced to release these resistance fighters and make his government more democratic. He then went on the board of directors of the French Committee for National Liberation (Comité français de Libération nationale or CFLN) and so the "dual between Giraud and de Gaulle" reached its peak. However, he was quickly overwhelmed by General de Gaulle's rallying actions and had to give in to him. His unfailing support for Pierre Pucheu ended up discrediting him amongst his partisans. Pétain's former Minister of the Interior had in fact persuaded Morocco to serve the colours of the Free French (France Libre), but his move was considered to be too late for someone accused of collaboration with the enemy and participation in the arrest of hostages.

On the 13th September 1943, he sent French troops to support Corsican resistance fighters by landing on the island. It was a military success but Giraud was the subject of much criticism from General de Gaulle for having armed the communist Corsican resistance movement, giving a political tone to the operations for the liberation of Europe and weakening the unification work of the resistance movement. He finally lost his seat on the CFLN. In April 1944, Giraud organised French participation in the Italian campaign, but, considered to be too implicated in the repressive Vichy system, he was discharged from his position of Commander in Chief and had to withdraw from the military involvement with the France Libre. He would share his experiences of these troubled times in his book: Un seul but: la Victoire, Alger, 1942-1944(Just one goal: Victory, Algiers1942-1944). On the 28th August 1944 he survived an assassination attempt in Mostaganem. In 1946, Giraud stood for the position of Deputy in Lorraine for the second National Constitutional Assembly on the list of the Republican Party of Liberty and of the Agrarian Independents. Elected on the 2nd June, he whipped support for the group of independent republicans and contributed to the creation of the Fourth Republic, despite his refusal to vote for the constitution. He took part in debates on the situation of non-repatriated prisoners of war (25th July 1946) and on the general policy of the government in Algeria (22nd August 1946). He sat on the Upper War Council until December 1948 and on the 10th March 1949 he received the Military Medal for his outstanding escape. He died the following day and is buried at Les Invalides.

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel (15th November 1891: Heidenheim - 14th October 1944: Herrlingen)

Erwin Rommel was born in Heidenheim on the 15th November 1891. He was from a middle-class background, the son of a maths teacher. He joined the army in 1910. In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, he was just 23 years old but very quickly proved to be an excellent soldier and leader of men. Decorated with the Order of Merit, after the war he became an instructor at the Potsdam War Academy and was then appointed director of the Wiener-Neustadt War Academy. Sympathetic to the National Socialists, in 1938 he was appointed Chief of Staff by Hitler at his headquarters and, a year later, made head of his personal guard. He was promoted to the rank of Division General on the 1st August 1939. After the campaign in Poland, he commanded the 7th tank division during the invasion of France, between May and June 1940, although he had no practical experience of tank warfare. His division rapidly advanced on Lille before taking the Maginot Line from the rear, capturing part of it. It was called the "Phantom Division", because nobody ever knew exactly where it was, but it would always appear when least expected, most notably in the breach of the Meuse on the 13th May, which was a tactical feat. Erwin Rommel was then appointed Commander of the German military forces of the Afrika Korps, in order to come to the aid of the Italians struggling in Libya against the British.

He succeeded in turning around the situation in Africa, where he was nicknamed the Desert Fox by both friends and enemies, because he was crafty and constantly improvising in order to change the outcome of the fighting. Appointed Army General on the 30th January 1942, he was to conquer Tobruk on the 21st June. Two days later, he was promoted to the dignity of Marshal. On the 3rd September 1942, Rommel fell ill and returned to Germany. When he came back to Africa, the British had already advanced considerably. The British General Montgomery managed to capture the town of El Alamein forcing the Afrika Korps and the Italians to retreat before taking them in a pincer movement using Anglo-American troops, who had been landing in Algeria and Morocco since the 8th November. Rommel managed to regroup the German forces along a front line in Tunisia known as Mareth, but it was a delicate operation as there was a lack of men and equipment.

On the 5th March 1943, he was recalled by Hitler and left Africa. He therefore did not witness the final defeat of the Afrika Korps in Tunisia on the 13th May 1943. He then took a command position in Italy and was later made responsible for inspecting the Atlantic Wall, as well as commanding the B group of armies located in Normandy under the orders of Feldmarschall von Runstedt with whom there was constant friction. His task was to defend the beaches from an allied invasion. During a discussion with General Bayerlein, Rommel told him: "It's no longer a question of crushing the attack from the fanatical hordes (the Russians) driven forward in masses with no regard for their losses... we must face up to an enemy who applies all his intelligence to use his technical resources... with no expense spared on equipment. Enthusiasm and tenacity are not enough to make a soldier, he must be intelligent enough to make the most of the situation and that is precisely what our adversary knows how to do.... "(The War without Hate, Rommel's personal papers published in 1953 by the English historian Liddell Hart, p 417).

Rommel was aware that the first hours of the allied assault would be critical. However, on the 6th June 1944, he found himself in Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday, as all the intelligence in his possession clearly indicated that there would be no landing before the 15th. Within a day he returned to his command post at la Roche-Guyon and tried to repel the forces landing by sea, but he knew it was already too late. On the 17th July 1944, he was seriously wounded in an air attack above the village of Vimoutier. On the 20th July 1944 there was an assassination attempt on Hitler. Rommel, who was unable to take part personally but was strongly implicated, was relieved of his post and Hitler left him no other choice but suicide, guaranteeing the safety of his family in return.

Four days after his death on the 14th October, Germany held an extravagant funeral in honour of this military leader, who was much valued by the people and whose execution would have tarnished the image of the State and the party. He was buried in Herrlingen.

The son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders (the brother of King Léopold II) and Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Albert I was Prince of Belgium, Duke of Saxony and Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. On the 2nd October 1900, he married Elisabeth, the Duchess of Bayern, with whom he would have three children: Léopold, who would become Léopold III, Charles-Théodore, Regent of the kingdom from 1944 to 1951 and Marie-José who would become Queen of Italy for just three months from the 9th May to the 13th June 1946. Albert I was sworn in on the 23rd December 1909, becoming the third King of the Belgians after Léopold I and Léopold II, sovereigns not of a kingdom, but of a nation (in the same way as Louis-Philippe I was "King of the French people" in 1830). Succeeding his uncle, King Léopold II, he discovered an opulent country with two communities, the Flemish and the Walloons, with the latter predominating, and endowed with a rich colony, the Congo. In 1914, Albert I rejected the ultimatum issued by Emperor Wilhelm II to secure the free passage of his troops across Belgian soil. On the 4th August, the Germans invaded Belgium, whose army, following fierce fighting at Liege and Anvers, took up position behind the Yser river on the 15th October.

Calm, modest and almost self-effacing, King Albert was to demonstrate his power by insisting on exercising his constitutional prerogative to take command of the army. He refused to follow the Belgian government in exile in Sainte-Adresse, on the outskirts of Le Havre, setting up his general headquarters in La Panne in Western Flanders and living alongside his soldiers for the duration of the war. He was admirably supported by his wife, Queen Elisabeth (1876-1965). Bavarian by birth (née Von Wittelsbach) and the niece of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Emperor Franz Josef, she devoted herself to caring for the wounded and refugees, founding a hospital in La Panne, where she worked as a nurse. Their son, Prince Léopold, Duke of Brabant, enlisted in 1915 as a simple soldier in the 12th regiment in Ligne, at the age of 13. In September 1918, Albert I actively took part in the decisive offensive launched by Foch to conquer the Flanders ridge (29th September) and the battle of Torhout-Tielt (14th - 18th October), which resulted in the reconquering of Bruges. On the 22nd November 1918, accompanied by Queen Elizabeth and his children, Albert I finally returned triumphantly to Brussels. The nobleness of his demeanour at the head of his army earned him the nickname of the "Knight King". In the period after the war, he represented Belgium at the peace negotiations at Versailles, defending his country's interests whilst also trying, in vain, to oppose the policy of excessive humiliation of Germany. An ardent climber, he died climbing one of the Marche-les-Dames rocks near Namur in the Meuse valley on the 17th February 1934.

Hindenburg, who came from a long line of Prussian army officers, was born in Posen (today Poznan) on 2 October 1847 to Robert von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, a lieutenant in the 18th infantry, and Louise Schwickart. Hindenburg was a cadet at the Wahlstatt military academy and in Berlin. In 1859 he was a second lieutenant in the Prussian Guard's 3rd infantry regiment and in 1866 took part in the Austro-Prussian War, fighting in particular at Rosberitz and Königgrätz. He participated in the 1870-1871 campaign against France at Saint-Privat in August and in the siege of Paris. On 16 January 1871 he was present at the proclamation of the German Empire at the chateau of Versailles. Hindenburg was admitted to the War Academy in 1873 and pursued his training with the general staff. He was a captain on the general staff of the 2nd army corps in Stettin in 1878 and of the 1st division in Königsberg in 1881. He was the head of a company of the 58th infantry regiment in 1884 before becoming a major in the operations section of the general staff led by von Schlieffen. In 1890 he became a war ministry department head.

Hindenburg was promoted to colonel in 1893 and headed the 91st infantry regiment in Oldenburg. In 1896 he became a brigadier general. He was the chief of staff of the 8th army corps in Koblenz before being appointed major general in command of the 28th division in Karlsruhe in 1900 and taking over as head of the 4th army corps in Magdeburg in 1903. He retired in 1911. On 23 August 1914 Hindenburg was called to command the 8th army and stopped the Russian offensive in East Prussia by defeating Samsonov at Tannenberg that month and Rennenkampf at the Mazurian Lakes in September. He was the Eastern front commander-in-chief in November 1914. The battles he won in Poland and Lithuania from 1914 to 1916 made the field marshal a national hero and Falkenhayn's successor as general chief of staff in August 1916. With Ludendorff as second in command, he took over as head of general military operations on all fronts. Hindenburg adopted a defensive stance in the West marked by the construction of a huge complex of fortified positions (the Hindenburg Line) and focused all efforts on Romania and Russia on the Eastern front, supported the Austrians on the Italian front and decided to wage unrestricted submarine warfare. In addition to military authority, Hindenburg and Ludendorff also had strong political clout and brought about the resignation of Bethmann-Hollweg, who disagreed with certain aspects of the conduct of the war, in July 1917. In 1918 the resumption of German offensives on the Western front failed. Beefed up by American units, the allied forces inexorably pushed back the German troops. Hindenburg urged the government to request an armistice. Hindenburg was demobilised in July 1919 and published his memoirs, Aus meinem Leben, the following year. In 1925 Hindenburg was elected president of the German Republic. In 1932 he ran again, this time against Adolf Hitler, whom he defeated but named chancellor the following year. On 2 August 1934 Hindenburg died in Neudeck, East Prussia.

On 9 April 1865 Erich Ludendorff was born to a family of shopkeepers in Kruszewnia, in the province of Posen (today Poznan, Poland). Ludendorff was a cadet at the schools of Pl½n and Lichterfeld from 1877 to 1882, second lieutenant in the 57th infantry regiment in Wessel and lieutenant in the 2nd marine battalion in Kiel-Wilhemshaven and 8th grenadiers in Frankfurt-am-Oder before entering the War Academy in Berlin, graduating in 1895 with the rank of captain. He was assigned to the general staff, where he headed the operations section from 1908 to 1912 and participated in drawing up the plan for the invasion of France under Schlieffen's and Moltke's orders. This period was interspersed with more or less brief stints at the head of an infantry company in Thorn and on the general staffs of the 9th infantry division in Glogau and the 5th army corps in Posen. He was promoted major in 1900, lieutenant-colonel in 1907 and colonel in 1911.

Ludendorf was assigned to the 39th infantry regiment in Düsseldorf in late 1912. He took command of the 85th infantry brigade in Strasbourg in April 1914 while continuing to participate in many general staff activities. In August 1914 Ludendorff was quartermaster of the 2nd army commanded by von Bülow and actively participated in taking Liege during the invasion of Belgium, which earned him the appointment of chief of staff of the 8th army on the Eastern front on 21 August 1914. After the victory of Tannenberg he became commander-in-chief Hindenburg's chief of staff. When Hindenburg succeeded Falkenhayn as the German armies' general chief of staff in summer 1916, Ludendorff became first quartermaster general, dealing with supply issues, drawing up military plans and directing operations. He advocated total war and ardently defended unrestricted submarine warfare, which brought him into conflict with Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, causing the latter to step down in July 1917. Ludendorff was also one of the main negotiators of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), which took Poland, the Baltic States, Finland and Ukraine away from Russia. Despite fierce fighting, his major Western front offensives in spring 1918 failed to prevent Germany's defeat. In late September he urged the government to request an armistice but retracted the decision.

In October 1918 he resigned and fled to Sweden, blaming Germany's civilian leaders for losing the war. In spring 1919 he went to Bavaria and got involved in politics, growing close to the National Socialists and supporting Hitler in his failed 1923 putsch. In May of the following year he was elected to the Reichstag. In March 1925 he stood for president as the nationalists' candidate but won few votes, losing the election to Hindenburg. In 1926 he founded his own party, the Tannenberg Bund. In 1935 he rejected Hitler's offer to raise him to the dignity of marshal. In addition to his war memoirs (1919), he was the author of many military works and political writings. He died in Tutzing, Bavaria on 20 December 1937.

Wilhelm II, the son of Emperor Frederick and Empress Victoria, the grandson of Wilhelm I of Hohenzollern on his father's side and Queen Victoria of England on his mother's, was born in Potsdam on the 27th January 1859. After studying at the secondary school in Kassel, he took a two year course at the university of Bonn and began his military training in the Guards. He was made Lieutenant in the 1st regiment of Foot Guards in 1877 and Captain in 1880, Commander of the Guard's Hussars in 1881 and then of the 1st battalion of the 1st regiment of Foot Guards in 1883. He was promoted to Colonel, in charge of the hussars, in 1885 and appointed General in 1888. In the meantime, in 1881 he married Princess Augusta-Victoria, the daughter of Frederick Augustus of Schleswig-Holstein. In May 1844, he travelled to Russia to consolidate the alliance of the three Emperors (Germany, Austria and Hungary) in accordance with Chancellor Bismarck's orders. Crowned king of Prussia and Emperor of Germany on the 15th June 1888, following the three month reign of Frederick III, it was his intention to begin to exercise real political power. However, his involvement fluctuated wildly, depending on the state of his mental health.

His differences of opinion with Bismarck, most notably regarding social matters, relations with Russia and colonial policies became more frequent and, in 1890, the latter resigned. To replace him, Wilhelm II appointed Leo von Caprivi who would be succeeded in 1894 by Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, in 1900 by Prince Bernhard von Bülow and in 1909 by Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. Responsible for the development of the military power and wealth of the German Empire, he embarked on a policy of commercial, colonial and maritime expansion. Germany witnessed great rapid economic development, gradually becoming the top industrial power in Europe. The impact on a social level was manifold but tensions were no less frequent. The social democrats continued to gain ground, securing the greatest representation in the Reichstag in 1912. On a domestic level, however, the country was also up against its minority groups: the Polish in Posen, the Danish in Schleswig and those from the Alsace and Lorraine region who refused to accept the policy of Germanisation. In Europe, Germany's growth as well as its foreign policy caused worry. Competition to seek out commercial opportunities, interventions in the Near East and the Balkan countries were just some of the subjects of disagreement, especially as the Emperor kept changing his position, first siding with one and then another of the other four great European powers (Great Britain, France, Austro-Hungary and Russia). He did not renew the mutual assistance treaty with Russia in 1890, concentrating his efforts on strengthening the Triple Alliance (Triplice) between Germany, Austria and Italy, which was renewed in 1892, 1902 and 1912, but not without a few attempts at bridge-building with Great Britain and France (who signed the treaty of Entente cordiale between themselves in 1904) and with Russia herself. However, Anglo-German relations continued to deteriorate. The defensive with Russia (the 1905 treaty of Björkö) was a failure. Similarly, the attempt at reconciliation with France following the Agadir affair (1911) did not succeed. Germany became increasingly diplomatically isolated. Wilhelm II stepped up the reinforcement of his army and navy.

As Commander in Chief of the armies during the conflict that broke out in 1914, he retained the power to make appointments to the highest positions, as well as his role of coordination and arbitration between politicians and the military. However, he had to hand over the management of operations to Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who had become very popular following the success at Tannenberg and the Mazures lakes in August and September 1914 and who were appointed in charge of the High Command in the summer of 1916. Confronted with German defeat and the revolutionary troubles of November 1918, the emperor abdicated on the 9th. He took refuge in the Netherlands, who refused the extradition request from the Allies seeking to apply sanctions against him as prescribed by the treaty of Versailles. He then devoted himself to writing and in 1922 and 1927 published his memoirs: Ereignisse und Gestalten, 1878-1918 and Aus meinem Leben, 1859-1888. He died in Doorn, in 1941.